Clinic in UK now doing Faecal Microbiota Transplantation (FMT)

I have found a clinic in the UK who have now started doing Faecal Microbiota Transplantation (FMT). It is an extremely well run clinic whose main focus was colonic irrigation and digestive wellbeing who have now decided to make FMT their main business. They supply their own donor stool with the donor being comprehensively tested beforehand. They are doing FMT to treat all gut related illnesses.

They do 1 infusion a day for 10 days and the cost is £4000.

Interestingly when Professor Borody in Australia started doing FMT he used a colonic irrigation clinic as is the case here.

I have no commercial involvement in this clinic.

You need to contact Glenn Taylor by email to [email protected] and if you mention that you got his details from the Environmental Illness website that will be useful as I have asked if it would be ok to put his contact details here.

You need to be a member of this group before you can participate in this discussion.

Thanks for the feedback idkwia, that is encouraging to know. Maybe the increase in my brain fog and feeling of being "drunk" since the FMT was bound to happen either way and was only coincidental? I dont know. Maybe i will never know. All i know is that i am tired of ME/CFS and IBS. I really dont know how to heal my gut so i can recover from this illness. Ive done the FMT. Theres nothing left to do! But theres always hope!

Cedric, I have been in contact with the main clinic in the world that does FMT and asked the lead nurse to tell me honestly how many people had got worse and to my amazament she said that of the thousands of procedures they have done nobody has reported getting worse.Interesting what you say about yourself but maybe this is hopefully a herx reaction.

Yellow11, the fact that the low residue diet made you feel the best in 4 years is very interesting. Have you looked into a FODMAP diet which has proven to be very successful for many patients with the symptoms you describe. FODMAPS was pioneered by a hospital in Oz so you are in the right place.

I feel my FMT from August 2012 made my gut issues and ME/CFS worse. Interestingly on paper my gut is healthy with no pathogenic bacteria and a 3+ on lacto, 4+ on both e.coli and bifido. Having said that, I always had NG on lacto my whole life until after the FMT so it obviously did something. I don't feel it agreed with me though. How can I reverse the effects of the procedure? Should I do antibiotics or antiparasitics or anything? Is there even a way to reverse it? My doc doesnt want to give me antibiotics because he likes the way my gut bacteria looks on paper. I don't care what it looks like on paper. all i care about is how I feel. Any thoughts or advice?? Can the procedure make us worse?!

Hey guys, Just dropping in to say thanks for the support and for checking out the blog. I haven't had much to add in the past couple of weeks. Things didn't work out for me but I saw enough to know that if I can get myself into a place of good physical/mental health, it would give the treatment a much better chance of working.

Having a flare of my candida issues mid-treatment was i'm pretty sure the reason that things didn't work out for me. I'm continuing on with ad-hoc treatments for a bit but I think in my heart I know that i'm most likely going to have to bite the bullet and have a proper treatment again later in the year. I need to save up some more cash first!

I'M sorry for your dad, about the veggies its for sure most of them in my case, I avoid fruits aswell, bananas I think are one of worst as these I feel bad reaction already when I just ate them so they just get to my stomach not the gut. Its my large intestine that hurts sooooo bad on daily basis but I think the problem with fermenting gut and slow transit/bad microbiota starts before in small intestine I don't feel it though, So to this Faecal transplant clinic in my opinion its simply too expensive as for being transplanted to the colon as it really may be not effective enough to deal with upper gut down. I will try this on my own. but I strongly believe good Faecal microbial transplant that goes through all the digestive tract beggining from small upper gut down is the answer for us to repair our biota, if we talk about this kind of money maybe it could be better if we so desperate ones sufferers in UK organize together and to get the tubes and all to transplant it straight to upper gut, it's a plan

Thats interesting oneone. Firstly sorry I haven't been around for a while, unfortunately my father was in the final stages of alzhemiers and has passed away recently so I've been a bit preoccupied. I'd really like to concur with Doorie and thank Mike for his blog, very sorry it didn't work out as well as you, Mike, hoped for but certainly Glenn comes across as a very caring individual. I've been conned by a few alternative "medics" in the past so was a bit suspicious when I saw that the Taymouth clinic was described as being alternative but your blog has put my mind at ease a bit. Obviously Gleen did his very best unfortunately it was not to prove successful for you Mike on this occassion but I did read how some peole need to undergo the treatment a few times for it to really work. But thanks a million Mike for keeping us all on here updated, it was extremely informative.They do say Oneone (not that I'm an expert or anything) that raw foods are an awful lot harder to digest than cooked ones so it doesn't surprise me what you say. I wonder though is it all vegs you have problems with, maybe it's just one or two of them but as you eat them altogether it can be hard to identify the problem ones. Like I hear celery can cause a lot of people difficulty. Maybe restrict your veg intake to just one or two for a few days and see how you get on with them, and if they're ok expand to a few others? Dunno might be worth considering.With my father's passing it's really hit home to me how life is there to be lived, f**k it I'm tired of living the way I do so I really think if I can get the money together I might give the ft procedure a go. Wonder is anyone else out there about to try it out?

yellow11 I dont know about vegetables how it really is, I know they make my bowels the worst as beer , even cooked/fried. Once though cooked veggies did make my gut feel best, I dont know what I did different, but it makes my stomach feel much worse lately (raw was always the worse I completly try to avoid) veg still have lots of carbs . I thought maybe juicing and cooking the juice would be best but Im not sure now about SIBO

MikeH,I have been reading your blog on the process of undergoing FMT ( www.thehealthyhorse.wordpress.com ). Thank you so much for doing this. It helps people get an understanding of what the process is like, what to expect, and makes it a little less scary. For those who have yet to undergo FMT, it is really helpful to read a first hand account, with all the detail that comes from writing the blog during the actual 10 day process.

Cheers Maff! Treatment starts Jan 7 for 10 days. I'm going to be blogging about the experience at www.thehealthyhorse.wordpress.com. I'm not the greatest blogger but i'm going to be off work between now and the end of the treatment so will have a bit of time on my hands for some ramblings! You could follow me on twitter @thehealthyhorse if you wanted as easy way to see when i've blogged.

Yes, it is the Taymount Clinic that is doing the treatment here in the UK. I believe our long-term member and friend MikeH is booked in for January and I'm sure he will give us some feedback on his experiences at the clinic (no pressure Mike!).

Hey Maff,You're a real star, yet again what you say has been very illuminating for me. In case the person who wrote the post sees this then I offer my apologies for being so dismissive of it.I have to go back to the drawing board in terms of whats a right diet for me, I always thought vegetables were the safest things to eat, while white bread is too refined and starchy.That's a good point what you say about whther the sufferer has only a gi condition or something more complex, didn't think of that. Yet again you are a real mine of information.

Re: cooking vegetables. Yes, it is essentially starting the process of digestion. Breaking down chemical bonds and making the job of digestion in the upper GI tract much easier and quicker. Eating only raw food, although perhaps healthier for someone who is already healthy, requires an enourmous amount of energy and digestive juices i.e. gastric acid, digestive enzymes from the pancreas and small intestinal wall etc.

Thanks for posting this. It sounds familiar. I'm not sure if it is our very own TracyMac!

The dietary advice certainly isn't rubbish and is logical if you think about what is trying to be accomplished. Vegetables are generally high in fibre - and often starch also - both of which are difficult or impossible to digest. They therefore result in a lot of carbohydrates reaching the lower small intestine where bacteria, yeast and other microbes that have grown out of control can feed upon them. White bread on the other hand has had its fibrous husk removed and is much more rapidly digested and therefore the carbohydrate is absorbed much higher up the small intestine before the dysbiotic microbes get the chance to get a hold of it.

The question of time scale for improvement probably depends on manner factors, most notably the type of illness you are trying to treat. C. difficile infection seems to respond very quickly but then this is a GI only disease with the very obvious symptom of diarrhea. Environmental (or invisible) illnesses such as those discussed here at EiR there is a lot of immune, endocrine and nervous system dysfunction that is likely to take a much longer amount of time to move back towards normal even after the gut dysbiosis has been taken care of and things are back in balance in the gut.

Hi all again, I came across this post on an ibs forum today, I'd like to share it with everyone here - hey im from australia and i have had this treament 2 weeks ago, i did 10 days of treatment its costed about $3000 AUD im pretty sure its the only place in oz doing this treament centre of digestive disease sydney. after having the procedure now knowing whats involved if i have to do the treatment again i would do the whole thing myself. find a donor a friend or family member possibly the healthiest person you know & one who can keep there mouth shut about this lol. get there fresh stool buy some kind of blender with disposable heads and mix the stool with salt saline water, and insert 300mls via enema. then hold for around 1.5 hours massage your colon for half hour moving from left side for 10min to back to on your belly then the left side. ive been sick with cronic IBS for 4 years now and ive tried absolute everything i even did a 10 day fast in thailand as a parasite cleanse ive never had any diagnoses i get cronic acid reflux foul gut fermentation/cronic wind & fatigue my vision is very fuzzy/blurry and brain fog i feel so stupid cannot think properly and many other ibs symptoms im 23years old and feel like my like my life is just fading away ive been off work now for 7 months due to my condition getting to much mostly fatigue and the foul wind. im not feeling any better yet from the treatment but be prepared there is a long prep to this treatment and post treatment! eg no alcohol for 6 months post treatment, & high fibre diet & no antibiotics.... also pre treatment i did 3 weeks on a low fibre diet i did this very strict i stuck to white bread eggs chicken & rice crackers & honey on toast for breaky for 3 weeks sounds heavy but it was the best ive felt in 4 years !!!!!!! no bacteria feeding off veggies and fibre, no foul wind this made me so happy i even got back into the gym for this period to burn off the excess carbs i was eating with all the white bread. then a 10 day course of a heavy antibiotic. anyway back to the treatment at first i was grossed out and wouldnt even watch the enema but after a couple days i was fine with it, so see if the doctors even have a DIY package and just provide info and enema bags or somthing so the cost isnt so high. there probably isnt anything on this planet i wouldnt do to get my old healthy life back, this was no hurdle for me. hopefully i see some restults they did say it normally doesnt start having some effect to 6-8 weeks and somtimes months so fingers crossed End of quote.This post makes absolutley no sense to me. Either its total rubbish or else my understanding of fts is way off. Leaving aside the fact that most vegetables are usually a safe enough food if you have dysbosis while white bread isn't, surely if an ft does work for you then the results should be apparent almost immediately. There would be no need to wait for 6 to 8 weeks. Either the bad bacteria has been replaced by the donor's good bacteria in which case you're laughing or they haven't. Either way you should know pretty soon. Of course there's always the possibillity the bad bacteria might grow back at some later date, for example if you don't watch your diet, but as soon as you've finished your treatment you should have a fair idea of whether it workded or not I've always assumed. Am i missing soemthing here?

Hi Mike. Good to see you back on the site again and great to hear you're going to give the Taymount clinic bacteriotherapy a try. Please do let us know how you get on..we'll all be eagerly awaiting news!

Re: antibiotics. I don't want to put a downer on things at all but the explanation you have been given doesn't make much sense to me. The antibiotics generally used prior to FT (e.g. Rifaxamin) are not absorbed from the GI tract and would therefore only wipe out bacteria in the gut. They would have no effect on commensal bacteria elsewhere on your body so not sure where the clinic is coming from with that.

Thanks for letting me know about the email notifications. I've managed to get some money together so a major overhaul/upgrade of the site will be undertaken in the first half of next year hopefully (trying to finish another project at the moment!).

Hi all. About a year since I last posted. I've signed up for bacteriotherapy at the Taymount in Jan. Really positive about the outcome. Tried DIY FT last Sept and had fleeting success with it so hoping a more professional job will really make the difference with my UC. I'm following a paleo/SCD diet, using stress reduction techniques and am generally in good health so I think i'm giving myself the best possible chance for this to work. I'll let you know how it goes!

@Yellow11 re antibiotics: I had a good chat with Glenn Taylor from the clinic and he made the point that using the antibiotics wipes out all bacteria (from your mouth, your ears, everywhere!) and this treatment only repopulates the gut. This put my mind at rest anyway.

Hey all,I'm just wondering how many here asked for the clinic's booklet. I got mine a few days ago. It looks good alright, obviously a lot of thought has gone into their treatment programme. Another person I've been lucky enough to be in contact with though feels that a bit disappointed that they don't use antobiotics to clear out the existing gut bacteria in the first place before doing the transplant and it's a bit too alternative medicine for his liking. Anyone would like to share their thoughts on this? Is anybody going to apply, I'm pretty sure I will though have to sort out a loan first, (that could be an awkward meetign with the bank manager, "I'd like a couple of grand for a fecal transplant please" haha)

I just wanted to tell everybody here that this is not a medical clinic run by doctors it is a naturopathic clinic that does colonic irrigation that became interested in FMT. That should not detract from the results but I just wanted to make this clear.

For those of you who cannot afford this amount of money then I would suggest you contact the clinic to get more details and discuss things.

Thanks for the reply Maff. If you don't mind me asking do you think you may visit the clinic yourself? As I said it's weird, I was all for trying to get this done and now that it seems I might get the opportunity I'm starting to get cold feet. Like it is an awful lot of money to hand over without knowing for sure whether it will work or not. If it does work then it would be the best money I ever spent, I'm kind of afraid though what if it doesn't work. For one thing I won't have much money left to pursue other treatments, like i'm on the expensive VSL#3 probitics at the moment. It's interesting what you say about the start up companies, do you think it would be a good idea to hold off for a bit to see whether more doctors will offer this? I've emailed the clinic so hopefully I'll find out more about what is involved.

yellow11 - I was quite shocked by this also, along with the news that a number of startup companies are preparing to supply fecal matter from pre-screened donors to doctors so they can more easily provide fecal transplants. I hadn't anticipated any of this would happen so quickly. Although I even saw an issue of the Economist last month and the cover feature was gut bacteria! Good news all round anyway!

Bushi - A colonic should NOT reach the small intestine as the junction between the two (the ileo-caecal valve) should prevent movement of anything in an upwards direction. We've had a few discussions about this and many of us are unsure whether you'd want FT in the small intestine anyway. The concensus I think is that this is just likely to fuel the SIBO. Very are meant to be VERY few microbes in a healthy small intestineafter all.

This really is amazing. again thank you Idkwia for telling us about this. And thanks you too Maff, it goes to show the value of having a forum like this where people can share such important information like this. Truth to tell I'm very taken aback by this news, I thought it might be a couple of years down the line before we could avail of it.

This is fantastic information idkwia. Thank you so much for sharing with us!

A colonic irrigation setup is really all you need. A 'high colonic' would get the faecal matter all the way around to the ascending colon where it needs to be.

noga - The site only sends out email notifications when there are new posts within a group discussion you have started or already replied to. It does not send notifications of new discussions posted to the group. That said, idkwia and a few others don't seem to be receiving any notifications at all. I plan to update the community software in the coming months and this should resolve all issues such as these. Apologies for the inconvenience at present.